We examine the extent to which the network effects that lead to the adoption of an online social platform are local. Focusing on the fantasy sports market in the US, we find that the size of a county's existing user base on the platform significantly impacts the number of new users who join the...

Crowdfunding, a fundraising mechanism in which monetary contributions are raised from a large number of people, is booming and impacting government policy. We study two features of a well-known crowdfunding platform, Kickstarter. First, we study the role of observable information in determining...